Range stability predicts lineage persistence in a morphologically cryptic ground squirrel species complex

The processes responsible for patterns of cytonuclear discordance remain unclear. Here, we employ an exon capture dataset, demographic methods, and species distribution modeling to elucidate the impact of historical demography on patterns of genealogical concordance and discordance in ground squirrel lineages from the Otospermophilus beecheyi species complex. Previous studies in O. beecheyi revealed three morphologically cryptic and highly divergent mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages (named the Northern, Central, and Southern lineages based on geography) with only the Northern lineage exhibiting concordant divergence in nuclear markers. We show that these mtDNA lineages likely formed in allo